


In Night's Cupped Palm

by Isis



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 13:37:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17002671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: Well past midnight, Finan puts his torch in the wall-bracket and steps into the room quietly, letting only the moonlight guide his way.  He knows how to be silent, whether it be to kill a man or to sneak out of a man’s wife’s bedchamber.  Or into the sick-room of Alfred’s by-blow, Osferth.





	In Night's Cupped Palm

**Author's Note:**

> Episode tag for S3E6, because Finan's face when he told Osferth, "If you die, I'm going to kill you myself." No major spoilers.

Well past midnight, Finan puts his torch in the wall-bracket and steps into the room quietly, letting only the moonlight guide his way. He knows how to be silent, whether it be to kill a man or to sneak out of a man’s wife’s bedchamber. Or into the sick-room of Alfred’s by-blow, Osferth.

It doesn’t matter; Osferth isn’t sleeping. His eyes fix upon Finan, and his lips curve into a smile. “I’m not dead yet.” His whisper is harsh in the silent keep.

Finan smiles, seats himself on the floor next to Osferth’s pallet. “Not yet, and not anytime soon, baby monk. Didn’t I tell you that if you dared to die –”

“That you’d kill me yourself, yes. You must have thought you were being funny.”

“Wasn’t thinking much at all, to be true. Just trying to keep you with us.” He’d said whatever had come to mind. Looking down at that pale, earnest face, covered with blood, he’d sworn oaths to the Lord Jesus and to Lugh and to anyone else who’d listen.

“I know,” rasps Osferth. “It worked, for a time.”

“What do you mean?” Finan puts a hand to Osferth’s brow. Hot, but not burning. Æthelflæd’s women wash and bind his wounds twice daily. Æthelflæd herself brings him his supper, or Finan does: porridge and ale, sometimes a bit of stew if one of the men has shot a hare or partridge. Finan cuts the meat fine so it’s fit for an invalid. “You’re getting better, aye? You’ll be up soon, and then we’ll get some sparring in, yeah?”

Osferth closes his eyes. “I’m no warrior.”

“You bashed some heads in when you had to. A little practice, and you’ll be the one to put your sword through a Dane or two.”

“I...I don’t think so. I’m going to die, aren’t I.”

His heart clenches a little in his chest, but he puts a smile on his face and squeezes Osferth’s shoulder gently. “Sure and we’re all going to die one day, boy. But your time’s a long way off.”

As far off as any of their deaths, anyway. As far as Finan’s concerned, he’s been living on borrowed time ever since he and Uhtred won their way free after being sold into slavery. Uhtred saved his life, and so his life belongs to Uhtred. But Uhtred is Alfred’s man, whether or not he happens to be acknowledging it at the time, and Osferth is Alfred’s boy, and so by some convoluted chain of logic which Finan may not be able to untangle but knows the truth of in his bones, Osferth is, like the rest of them, in this enterprise up to his neck. 

So maybe Osferth will live a long and presumably happy life in a monastic cell somewhere, and maybe he will die in battle with the rest of them; but he is not going to die in this sick-room, not if Finan has anything to say about it.

“I don’t want to die before – well. You know.”

Finan can feel the heat flaming in Osferth’s cheeks, but it’s not from fever. “I _don’t_ know. Whatever’s in your head is a complete mystery to me.”

“ _You_ know,” says Osferth again. He opens his eyes and looks at Finan, a sidelong glance that looks oddly endearing on that open, trusting face. “You’re a man of the world. I’m a monk.”

“Ah.” Sometimes he forgets that Osferth spent the first part of his life in the cloister. He’s as much one of them as Sihtric is, and his lack of experience seems just as attributable to his youth as his calling. After all, Hild had been cloistered as well, but Finan was only partly joking when he’d told Steapa that they were all afraid of her. “I hate to tell you, but the Lady of Mercia’s a married woman.” 

Not that that stopped her from making eyes at Uhtred. But that was none of his own business. Uhtred could take care of himself. Osferth was a different matter.

“I only want to be kissed before I die. I’ve never been kissed,” Osferth says quietly.

“Come on.” Finan scoffs. “Didn’t your mother kiss you?”

“I don’t remember, if she did. I was taken as a baby to be raised by the Church.”

Of course, thinks Finan. Alfred wouldn’t have wanted his bastard to be any sort of threat to the succession of his dreamed-of dynasty. “I’ll fetch the lady in the morning, then. She’s doubtless sleeping, as should you be.”

“But I might die in the night.”

Finan sighs. “You’re not going to die in the night.”

“But what if I do? Then I’ll not have been kissed in my life.” He takes a deep breath. “ _You_ could kiss me.”

That startles a laugh out of Finan. Sweet, smooth-cheeked Osferth – well, it’s not as though he hasn’t thought about him sometimes, out on the battle road, in their camp with no women nearby. Or even when there have been women nearby, for the only women in Uhtred’s camps have been Æthelflæd and Skade, and the choice between an untouchable lady or a frightening horror is really no choice at all. 

He eyes Osferth. “If that’s what you want, baby monk.”

“Please.”

So Finan leans across the space between them, bracing himself with a hand on the pallet’s far edge, and gently presses his lips to Osferth’s, which are as soft and as yielding as any girl’s lips. Truly that’s all he’d intended, just a light touch, but then Osferth makes a small noise and his mouth opens and his hand comes up and grips Finan’s shoulder, and someone’s heartbeat is loud in Finan’s ears and he’s not sure if it’s Osferth’s or his own. He is lost in Osferth’s mouth, in the soft moans he’s making, in the sharp herbal scent that wafts up from the bandages around his wounds, in the pulse of his own desire. Perhaps it will damn his soul to hell, but it’s not as though he hasn’t been damned already in a thousand ways, and so it is a very long moment before he leans back and away.

Osferth’s eyes are wide, and abruptly Finan feels a pang of guilt. He himself may be damned, but Osferth is yet innocent, and it would be wrong to drag the boy into the pit for his own unholy desires. He looks away from those eyes and all their implications. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” whispers Osferth. “I asked you, and you did it.”

“I shouldn’t have, aye?”

“I asked you, and so you should have. I won’t die unkissed now.” There is an odd sort of pride in his voice.

“Well, then. I suppose that’s a good thing.” He begins to unfold himself from the floor.

“But if I die before the morning –”

“You’re not dying before the morning.”

“But if I do,” Osferth persists. “I’ll die without having anybody’s hand but my own on my –”

“Go to sleep, Osferth,” says Finan as he gets to his feet. He laughs quietly to himself. Not quite as innocent as he’d thought, apparently. But the boy is wounded, feverish; and they are under the Lady of Mercia’s roof. The moonlit world that holds them now, suspended in night’s cupped palm, will vanish with the dawn. By daylight, things will be different. Perhaps Osferth may even forget that Finan visited him in the night.

But perhaps he won’t. Perhaps Osferth will come to him again, after he has recovered from his injuries, with the future stretching out bright before him – or with a battle-death looming over both of them. It will happen, or it won’t happen; Finan’s no seer, for which he is deeply thankful. For now, he only squeezes Osferth’s shoulder and shakes his head. “You’re not going to die untouched, I promise you that.”

“Then will you –”

“Go to sleep,” repeats Finan. “I’ll do the same, aye? And I’ll see you in the morning.”


End file.
